Yurts: Living in the Round

By Becky Kemery

Yurts: Living in the Round journeys from Central Asia to modern America and reveals the history, evolution, and contemporary benefits of yurt living. One of the oldest forms of indigenous shelter still in use today, yurts have exploded into the twenty-first century as a multi-faceted, thoroughly modern, utterly versatile, and immensely popular modern structure whose possibilities are still being explored. Kemery introduces the innovators who redesigned the yurt and took it from back country trekking and campground uses to modern permanent homes and offices. Yurts: Living in the Round shows how to build, insulate, ventilate, and transport a yurt, plus shares invaluable information on everything from foundations and heating to building codes and floor plans. Inspiring and imaginative photographs plus an extensive resource section offer all the information needed to take the next step. Explore the benefits of circular living, in locations as diverse as the mountains of France, a retreat center in Chile, a bed and breakfast in Georgia, and many more!

Yurts reveals:

• Which kind of yurt to buy
• Where to find a yurt, find a builder, or get plans to do it yourself
• Floor plans for a variety of yurts
• Case studies and personal stories of yurt dwellers
• Ideas on combining yurts with outbuildings or satellite yurts
• Plus, an extensive resource section and index!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gibbs Smith
• Release date: Nov 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781423617754

Book preview

Credits

Acknowledgments

Any project like this involves a journey, and this journey has been made with the support and assistance of a large community.

One of the greatest joys has been meeting and interviewing the visionaries behind the modern yurt movement; each is an inspiration. I met Alan Bair and Pete Dolan of Pacific Yurts while working as a tradeshow carpenter, before I ever thought of writing this book. I was impressed with Alan’s work from the start—from the design elements he instigated and the company he created to his unwavering commitment to opening up the market through every possible avenue. Pete Dolan, responsible for the legendary customer service of Pacific Yurts, has helped with many aspects of the book, from assisting with photo collection to providing advice, and along with Alan reviewing sections of the manuscript. Thank you, Peter and Alan.

Yurt-builder and designer David Raitt, his wife, Kelly, and Annie Raitt all opened their hearts and homes to me, adding their support and many ideas to the project. I’ve resisted telling David’s story in full in this volume since he is writing his own book. A wonderful communicator, David is the best person to share his amazing tale. His book will be a welcome addition to the growing body of literature on yurts.

Dan Neumeyer has helped with this project in more ways than I can recount. He arranged and was present for my initial interview with Bill Coperthwaite in Maine. He has contributed many of the wonderful photographs in the Ancient Paths and Tapered Wall Yurt chapters, reviewed various chapters, and added his ideas on proportion to Bill’s in the Tapered Wall Yurt chapter.

Bill Coperthwaite has challenged me to think and live evermore deeply and creatively. Following Bill’s example, I’ve sought to balance each day of writing with what he calls bread labor—time spent planting and harvesting and chopping and stacking wood. His ideas constantly challenge me to bring simplicity, joy, and thoughtfulness to everything I do.

Paul King, owner of Woodland Yurts in Somerset, England, author of The Complete Yurt Handbook, and a leader in the European yurt movement, contributed many photographs and much encouragement. Thank you, Paul.

Morgan Reiter of Oregon Yurtworks likewise granted interviews, reviewed parts of the manuscript on frame panel yurts, and gave excellent feedback. Thank you, Morgan.

Many other yurt builders and innovators have shared their time and their stories with me. Among them are Kirk Bachman, Chuck and Laurel Cox, Emma and Dan Kiger, Jenny Pell, Will Hayes, brothers Jeff and Bo Norris, Blue Evening Star, Jessica and Lee Tenhoff, Jerry Gray, and Howie Oakes. Those in Europe include Hal Wynne Jones, Steve Place, Charles Leys, Rob Matthews, and Alexandr Spado.

Others who have shared their stories with me include yurt dwellers and those who use yurts in their business or nonprofit endeavors. Many of their stories are included here, others are not, but all who gave interviews or shared information have become part of the fabric of the book. Thank you all.

I am especially grateful to those who enlightened me from their areas of expertise. Jan Sitarz taught me about felting and shared books. Navajo scholar Harry Walters talked with me about the hogan. Sandpoint, Idaho, building inspector Don Carter helped decode the building codes. Teresa Lunde of Horizon Northwest Home Mortgage explored yurt financing with me, and Carol Bethel of Harris Dean Insurance researched my insurance questions. Thank you all for your additions to the book.

To all who reviewed portions of the manuscript and gave feedback—Annick Smith, Bill Coperthwaite, Harry Walters, Maxx Sonadre, David Kraisler, Joseph Wythe, Pat Sparks, Beth and Larry Beede, Rob Matthews, Torvald Faegre, John Cloud, and others—thank you. Yurt-scholar Peter Alford Andrews, in particular, provided detailed feedback on the Ancient Paths chapter, which greatly enriched the content. Many of the North American yurt companies also gave their input on the Modern Fabric Yurt chapter, making corrections and adding needed information. Thank you all. At points of conflicting information, I have made choices to the best of my ability; mistakes that remain in the book are my responsibility.

People from around the world generously shared their yurt photos with me—again many more than could be included—and I thank you all. Scott Vlaun, gifted photographer and writer, stepped forward to take additional photographs of the frame panel yurts. His photographs grace the back jacket of this book and much of the last two chapters. Thanks so much, Scott, for your commitment to this project and for maintaining the highest standards in everything you do.

Others who have made major photographic contributions include Bill Coperthwaite, Peter Alford Andrews, Peter Forbes, and Beth and Larry Beede.

Thank you, Torvald Faegre, for drawing maps and diagrams for the book. It was good to have your involvement in the project.

Zizi Vlaun, thank you for your design work on the Web site www.yurtinfo.org, which preceded this book and brought lots of additional connections and information my way.

I’ve received writing support from many quarters over the years. Many thanks to the fabulous writers in my online writing group of 2002 for support early in the game, and in particular to Wendy Orange and the Bassar Arts Foundation for a research grant to study yurts. Thank you, Catherine Wanek, for your ongoing guidance and mentoring. Thanks to Heather MacElwain and Zach Hagadone for their careful editing input, and to my current writing group, the North Idaho Writers’ Collective, for continuing support.

One of the wonderful things about living in a small town is that a project like this becomes a community affair. Many friends and neighbors have helped in various ways. Special thanks go to Joyce Jowdy and Maggie Abrahmson for assistance with photo collection and Virginia Schmidt for help with photo selection.

The East Bonner County Public Library has provided immense help and support, in particular through the work of Peggy Lanaville and Carol Holmquist, who retrieved numerous volumes for me through the Interlibrary Loan Department, and Gina Emory who provided frequent technical assistance. Thanks also to the architecture library at University of Washington, an important resource in the area of vernacular architecture.

To baristas and local coffee shops everywhere, home of the itinerant writer, thank you—especially Monarch Mountain Coffee, Common Knowledge Bookstore and Teahouse, and Coldwater Creek Coffeeshop in Sandpoint, Idaho.

Thank you, Philip Freddolino, for helping me build my yurt platform, install my stove, sponge paint my floor, and insulate my yurt. Thanks for being my ongoing technical resource and friend.

It is the publisher that makes a book like this even a remote possibility for an author. My deepest gratitude goes to Suzanne Taylor, Madge Baird, and everyone at Gibbs Smith, Publisher for having the vision to take on this project and the patience to see it through. Many thanks to my editor, Aimee Stoddard, for her loving care of the manuscript, and to Leticia Le Bleu for her careful work with the photographs. Special thanks to Steve Rachwal for his gorgeous book design.

My biggest supporters through this entire project have been my parents, Peter and Evelyn Kemery. They visited me in my very first rental yurt and shared my delight in its beauty. They watched me buy my first yurt and helped me buy the second. They have been a part of this project in ways that no one will see, from financial support and manuscript feedback to German translation work—as well as just pure friendship and support. It wouldn’t have been the same journey without you, Mom and Dad. Thank you so much!

Foreword

It is with great pleasure that I find this long-awaited study of yurts ready for the press.

For me, the native yurt is a wonderful symbol of the folk genius of the nomads in inner Asia. Somewhere in the dawn of prehistory these wandering peoples realized they could raise a tipi onto a folding lattice wall and hold it together with a girdle, a rope, a tension band, eliminating the clutter of struts, guy ropes, and poles and gaining greatly in clear, open space. This was the work of many minds over many years. The crowning glory of the design was the tension band.

While there are many small differences in yurt design as you move from tribe to tribe across the high, dry country of central Asia, the basic design of the yurt remains the same: a portable dwelling consisting of a folding lattice wall and radial roof poles set in a skylight rim, all held together with a tension band at the eaves and the whole covered with thick blankets of wool felt. The design has reached such a pinnacle of perfection that it is extremely difficult to imagine improving on it using only materials available to the nomadic herders. The yurt was a brilliant solution to the shelter needs of these peoples. Its genius is on a par with the Eskimo kayak, the lapstrake boats of Scandinavia, the trulli domes of Alberobello, and the instruments of Cremona.

It is from deep admiration for this native design wisdom that I chose to call the modern structures derived from it yurts (a Tatar word for house, now in general use replacing myriad tribal terms). The elements my yurts have in common with the native ones include a central round skylight surrounded by a circular building and held together by a tension band. A native yurt would not fare well on the Maine coast where I live (and the price of all that handmade felt—in muscle or coin—would be formidable). Likewise, modern wooden yurts would be ridiculous for a people who must move with their herds, not to mention that wood is a scarce material in their region.

My work with yurt design has not focused so much on the search for better housing as on the search for better ways to live. The modern yurt is a beautiful example of cultural blending—of borrowing structural principles from Central Asian nomads and blending these with modern materials. If we are to discover, design, and create healthy ways for humans to interact with their home—this oasis in a galactic desert—we must take cultural blending to heart and glean what wisdom we can from all of our neighbors on this planet.

Preface

My home is round, and I can put it up or take it down in a day.

It rests on a deck that took a couple of weeks to build, but only because we were clearing land and planting a garden at the same time.

At night, I fall asleep looking up through a round central skylight at diamonds speckling an inky black sky. If I’m lucky, coyotes sing the moon up and on its path, and, if the angle is right, an escaped moonbeam might slide through the skylight circle and across my floor. A nearby creek washes its soundscape through my dreams, and birdsong wakes me for my morning tea.

Yurt living has been my habit for awhile now. This is the fourth yurt I’ve lived in, and the second that I’ve owned. It’s my shelter of choice. I love the open feel, the graceful lift of the roof, and the encircling roundness. I love being close to nature and my surroundings. Not everybody likes to live in one large room, but it suits me just fine. In the summer, I use an outdoor kitchen to cook for friends, dry herbs from my garden, and make huckleberry jam. In the winter, soup simmers on the woodstove that heats the yurt and morning coffee percolates on a small 1950s propane stove rescued from a trailer.

In many respects, this book is about design, about taking an ancient, time-tested, and worthy design from an indigenous culture and exploring the ways it can be stretched to meet a broad cross section of contemporary needs. Throughout the book you’ll hear the voices of what yurt-builder David Raitt calls imagineers, gifted people thinking outside the box of modern concepts of shelter. Some of them clothe the ancient forms in modern materials, while others express their design philosophies through unusual expansions of the form itself.

The first chapter, What’s a Yurt?, looks at what defines a yurt, the mechanics of its circular architecture and its unique characteristics. Today, we not only have the womblike indigenous Central Asian yurts, the Turkic üy and Mongolian ger, but also three modern versions. This chapter defines the distinctive features of these five types of shelter that are all called yurts and outlines their history. The rest of that history unfolds in stories and sidebars woven throughout the book.

Not everyone wants to modify yurt design. The first chapter also tells the story of yurt makers in the UK and European Union who have chosen to stay close to the ancient, time-tested designs of Central Asia, with occasional modifications to accommodate climatic variables. In countries with deep historical roots and centuries-old buildings, the style of the ancient yurts seems more appropriate. Innovation has come mainly in their varied uses.

Yurts are one of the oldest indigenous forms of architecture, carrying the energy of tribal nomads crossing the Asian steppes from millennia past. Ancient Paths, the second chapter, explores the origins of these nomad homes and their use during the period of the great Mongol Khans, when yurt dwellers conquered and ruled the largest empire in history. This chapter also clarifies the two distinct designs that have evolved along tribal lines and explains how these yurts are made, transported, and erected. The Mongolian understanding of home as sacred space is described, along with lessons the yurt brings us from the unique perspective of the nomad.

As described in chapter three, the Tapered Wall Yurt, yurts came to North America through the passion and vision of Bill Coperthwaite, a lifelong student of indigenous design and tribal technologies and a teacher of democratic social design. Bill retained the nomads’ philosophy of simplicity, self-sufficiency, and connection to the natural world while modifying yurt design to use local materials and meet the need of North Americans for permanent shelter. His tapered wall yurts are rustic as well as beautiful in design and proportion.

One of the most stunning tapered wall yurts is the three-tiered yurt with a cupola that is Bill Coperthwaite’s home and the home of the Yurt Foundation, a repository for worldwide indigenous crafts and design. Located on four hundred acres in Maine and bordered by the seacoast on one side and forested woodlands on the other, it stands as a symbol of the melding of ancient and modern and of the beauty and magic that are possible when the human heart expresses itself in intelligent design. The third chapter also tells the stories of two families who built their own tapered wall yurt homes, one family using Bill’s plans and the other creating their own design.

North Americans tend to think of yurts as the fabric-covered, trellis-walled structures they see in parks or stay in while skiing backcountry trails. The portable, flexible modern fabric yurt, with its extraordinary range of uses from homes and classrooms to bed and breakfasts, is the subject of chapter four, the Modern Fabric Yurt. A fabric yurt, more comfortable than a tent but still not quite a house, is different from what most of us are accustomed to for shelter. This chapter answers the most frequently asked questions about living in fabric yurts—from foundations, heating and bathrooms, to bears and building codes. You’ll also see a lot of examples of how people have used fabric yurts for business, pleasure, and as homes.

Chapter five, the Frame Panel Yurt, looks at a design that has combined elements of conventional stick-frame building with prefab innovation to take the yurt and circular design to new and unusual places. The designers of the frame panel yurt set out to provide affordable permanent homes that are custom designed to meet the needs of individual families. In frame panel yurts, the concept of circular living expands to include contemporary, luxurious, multistory structures with rectilinear connectors and uses ranging from homes to office buildings and churches. This chapter shows a cross section of examples and includes an architect’s perspective on circular design.

The last chapter examines what Living in the Round means in terms of the interior use of circular space. A yurt dweller has many options, ranging from built-in rooms and lofts to outbuildings and satellite yurts. This chapter provides pictures and floor plans to demonstrate the broad range of possibilities available in working with circular spaces.

The appendixes contain additional tools for the fabric yurt dweller, including excerpts from building codes and a sample platform plan and woodstove and chimney diagrams.

The Resource Guide contains listings of yurt companies, yurt plans, books, films, Web sites, and online forums. Updated listings and a yurt newsletter can be found on the

Reviews for Yurts

[maggie1944 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

beautiful book, carries native and hippy yurts into the 21st century